Notes from Story Time Category: Phonological Awareness

Helping your child understand that words have a rhythm and can be broken down into syllables will help your child later when he/she is sounding out words while learning to read. As you read Roadwork by Sally Sutton with your child, clap along to the sound words such as “Ping! Bang! Tap!”

This book uses three traditional nursery rhymes and has fun with them. Nursery rhymes are fun to sing and say with your children. Even if children do not understand the meaning of all the words in the rhymes, hearing them is helping children develop phonological awareness, or the ability to play with parts of words.

Noisy words are a fun way to build phonological awareness, or being able to hear different sounds in words. Teaching children that the cow says “moo,” the pig says “oink,” and so on not only teaches your child about animals, but also about sounds that words can make. This will help them later when they are learning to read.

Phonological awareness involves being able to break words down into parts. In Wiggle Waggle by Jonathan London, you’ll have fun with onomatopoeia—the name for words (many times silly ones) that sound like what they describe—like CLOMP or BOING! You may stretch the sounds in some of these words, or say them quickly!

Take advantage of every opportunity to rhyme with your children even if the book does not have rhyming text. Pick out a word and brainstorm some rhyming words together. For instance, this book by Manya Stojic has just one word for a title: Snow. Can you think of some words that rhyme with “snow?”

Do you ever make up nonsense words? The book Froodle by Antoinette Portis has tons of them! After you read the bird’s silly words in the story, play a game to make up some of your own! Phonological awareness involves understanding that words are made up of smaller sounds. When they have this skill, children are able to think about how words sound, separate from what they mean.

Find time to sing with your children this week. You may not realize it, but singing songs helps children hear words broken down into parts. This builds phonological awareness, which helps them later on when they have to sound out words.

The early literacy skill of phonological awareness focuses on having your child play with and have exposure to the small parts in words, as well as hearing the beginning sounds in words. Bring this skill to life by reading It’s Snowing! It’s Snowing!: Winter Poems by Jack Prelutsky. The short poems feature silly word pairings and fun imagery that will allow you and your child to play with words.

Duck in a Truck by Jez Alborough is a great book for phonological awareness because it contains rhymes throughout the story. Rhyming is one way children can hear parts of words. While you share the book, ask your child to guess what the rhymes are. By turning this into a game, you are making learning phonological awareness fun!